"Next Year in Jerusalem"

Europe is no longer safe for young women or Jews. 

Barcelona's chief rabbi told the Jewish population to move to Israel because "Europe is lost." He told them that it was better to get out earlier rather than later and not to make the same mistakes other populations of Jews had made in thinking that the hatred would blow over. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/barcelona-terror-attack-chief-rabbi-meir-bar-hen-jews-move-israel-europe-is-lost-a7903111.html 

Haaretz had an article that claimed a spike in immigrations from the U.S. after Trump was elected. I understand that many Jewish people have a liberal bent and would not appreciate living in a Trump America. But I also sadly watch the rise of Neo-Nazism and other hate groups who believe, as Hitler did, that Jews are ruining the world. Those people will succeed in making American Jews consider relocating to their ancestral home. http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.769037

After World War II, the U.S. used Operation Paperclip to import many of Germany's finest minds including Albert Einstein. Out of this program came multitudes of inventions and discoveries. The list is too long to reproduce here. We can start with the Sauk vaccine for polio which made a common illness a rarity. Here are a couple of lists:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Israeli_inventions_and_discoveries

And this list found on Yelp:

Here's a partial list of Jewish Inventions :
Jeans, Lipstick, the Ballpoint Pen, Contraceptives, Instant Coffee, Television Remote Control, Traffic Lights, Scotchguard, the Flexistraw, The Atomic Bomb, the Thermonuclear Bomb, Genetic Engineering, the Nuclear Chain Reactor, Virtual Reality, Hollywood, the Sit-Com, the Long Playing Record, Sound Movies, Videotape, Color Television, Instant Photography, Holography, Psychoanalysis (Freud), the Theory of Relativity (Einstein), Cafeterias, Discount Stores, Pawn Shops, the Shopping Cart, the Ready-to-Wear Clothing Industry, Prozac, Valium, The Polio Vaccine, Radiation, Chemotherapy, the Artificial Kidney Dialysis machine, the Defibrillator, the Cardiac Pacemaker, Vaccination against the deadly "Hepatitis B" virus, the Vaccinating Needle, Laser Technology, Google, the Wire Transmission Facsimilie (FAX) , the Microphone, the Gramophone, the Microprocessing Chip, Optical Fiber Cable,  Laser, Cellular Technology, the Videotape Recorder, Drip Irrigation, Scale Model Electric Trains, the Pager,  the Walkie-talkie,  Refrigerated Railroad Car, High-vacuum Electron Tubes, the Incandescent Lamp, Kodachrome Film, the Blimp, the Adding Machine,  Stainless Steel, Tapered Roller Bearings. 

https://www.yelp.com/topic/el-cerrito-boycott-all-jewish-inventions-and-medical-advances

How many of these would you be willing to live without?

If you think about it, just as the U.S. benefited from importing many German Jews, so too will Israel gain from bring their people home. And other nations will become poorer for it.

God's word says it will happen - and we watch it fall into place in the daily news. Maybe you have to look at sources from other countries since our news services are too busy bashing our sitting President, but the facts are apparent.

And as badly as the surrounding nations want Israel to disappear from the map, it will not happen. See the end of Amos chapter 9.

From Jeremiah 31

“Again I will build you and you will be rebuilt,
            O virgin of Israel!
            Again you will take up your tambourines,
            And go forth to the dances of the merrymakers.

      5“Again you will plant vineyards
            On the hills of Samaria;
            The planters will plant
            And will enjoy them.

“Behold, I am bringing them from the north country,
            And I will gather them from the remote parts of the earth,
            Among them the blind and the lame,
            The woman with child and she who is in labor with child, together;
            A great company, they will return here.

      9“With weeping they will come,
            And by supplication I will lead them;
            I will make them walk by streams of waters,
            On a straight path in which they will not stumble;
            For I am a father to Israel,
            And Ephraim is My firstborn.”

      10Hear the word of the LORD, O nations,
            And declare in the coastlands afar off,
            And say, “He who scattered Israel will gather him
            And keep him as a shepherd keeps his flock.”

“They will come and shout for joy on the height of Zion,
            And they will be radiant over the bounty of the LORD—
            Over the grain and the new wine and the oil,
            And over the young of the flock and the herd;
            And their life will be like a watered garden,
            And they will never languish again.

New American Standard Bible

From Amos 9:

Israel’s Restoration

11 “In that day

“I will restore David’s fallen shelter—
    I will repair its broken walls
    and restore its ruins—
    and will rebuild it as it used to be,
12 so that they may possess the remnant of Edom
    and all the nations that bear my name,[e]”
declares the Lord, who will do these things.

13 “The days are coming,” declares the Lord,

“when the reaper will be overtaken by the plowman
    and the planter by the one treading grapes.
New wine will drip from the mountains
    and flow from all the hills,
14     and I will bring my people Israel back from exile.[f]

“They will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them.
    They will plant vineyards and drink their wine;
    they will make gardens and eat their fruit.
15 I will plant Israel in their own land,
    never again to be uprooted
    from the land I have given them,”

says the Lord your God. (NKJ)

May God bless us all,
Kathi Linz

Pillar of Cloud Over the Golan Heights

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5I-QKuF9OM

Shooting began on the Golan Heights about a month ago when this happened. (See the video link)

Please notice that is an event unusual enough that all of the soldiers in the area are taking pictures and recording the cloud. The cloud came down between Israeli soldiers and the shooters on the other side of the hill. It hung over the Syrian side and never crossed the border onto the Israeli side.

Two things come to mind.

God said that when all the nations of the world turn against Israel, He will personally defend them,

When Cecil B. DeMille filmed "the Ten Commandments" he depicted the cloud as a thin finger of flame. Looking at this reminds me that God is so much bigger and more powerful than we ever imagine He is.

God bless your day,

Kathi 

At War with Israel

Les asked me this morning what Bible verse talked about Israel being alone against the world.  I thought of one I wanted to look up, and, as so often happens on the internet, I ended up in a whole different place.

The verses I found talked about God bringing all the nations to war with Israel in the Valley of Jezreel at the foot of Mount Megiddo, also know as Haar Megiddo or Armageddon.  But that wasn't what most caught my eye.

I found an article about Zephaniah 2:1-7 which reads like this:

"1 Gather together, gather together, O shameful nation, 2 before the appointed time arrives and that day sweeps on like chaff, before the fierce anger of the LORD comes upon you, before the day of the LORD's wrath comes upon you. 3 Seek the LORD, all you humble of the land, you who do what he commands. Seek righteousness, seek humility; perhaps you will be sheltered on the day of the LORD's anger.


4 Gaza will be abandoned and Ashkelon left in ruins. At midday Ashdod will be emptied and Ekron uprooted. 5 Woe to you who live by the sea, O Kerethite people; the word of the LORD is against you, O Canaan, land of the Philistines. "I will destroy you, and none will be left." 6 The land by the sea, where the Kerethites dwell, will be a place for shepherds and sheep pens. 7 It will belong to the remnant of the house of Judah; there they will find pasture. In the evening they will lie down in the houses of Ashkelon. The LORD their God will care for them; he will restore their fortunes."

Please note the reference to Gaza which hasn't changed its name in thousands of years.  Does anyone remember the day when the Israelis were kicked out of their houses by the Palestinians who were given Gaza as a homeland?  8,600 Israelis were brought out of Gaza escorted by the Israeli military, often under protest.  "But this is our home!  Where will we go?" they cried as they left everything behind.

Gaza was abandoned by the Israelis.  That was seven years ago in 2005.  God loves the number seven. 

Note the rest of the passage - wrath, destruction, the end of the Philistines/Palestinians.  God says He will do it, and the land will return to Judah.

I watch the news and see an almost inevitable war in the Middle East with Egypt, Syria, and any other Arab nation that wants to pile on, attacking Israel.  It won't be their best move.  God is on Israel's side.  Besides the promise to return the land to Judah mentioned above, you might want to note the last few verses of Amos (chapter 9):

¹³ “The days are coming,” declares the Lord,

“when the reaper will be overtaken by the plowman
    and the planter by the one treading grapes.
New wine will drip from the mountains
    and flow from all the hills,
¹⁴     and I will bring my people Israel back from exile.^[f]

“They will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them.
    They will plant vineyards and drink their wine;
    they will make gardens and eat their fruit.
¹⁵ I will plant Israel in their own land,
    never again to be uprooted
    from the land I have given them,”

says the Lord your God.

NEVER TO BE UPROOTED AGAIN!  Yes, I'm yelling!  No nation, not all the nations together will be able to take Israel out of their homeland again.  God says so.  Allah will not defeat Elohim, El Shaddai, the Great I AM and His people Israel.

Watch the news.  It's fascinating to match current events against prophecy - to see it all take place as if ancient Bible verses are today's headlines.  I don't believe there's much time left for us to talk to our family, friends, and neighbors about Jesus.

By the way, the verse I was originally looking for is Ezekiel 38:13.  If you are aware of end times prophecy at all, you will know this chapter.  It is about Gog and Magog and their cohorts coming to attack Israel, "a land of unwalled villages".

The part I was thinking about is where the "cubs (or merchants) of Tarshish" shake their fingers at the attack but do nothing to stop it.  Tarshish may very well have been part of ancient Spain.  Where did the merchant ships come from that found and founded America? 

And although our nation has a strong history of supporting Israel, do you think the current administration would lift a finger if Russia and the Islamic nations descended on Israel en masse?  I think they would shake their fingers and their heads, leaving Israel to its fate.

And that, my friends, is when God will step in, when Israel has no one to depend on but its God.

I'm watching the news.  The times we live in are a wonder.  I believe this chapter in time is about to come to an end and a new one begin.  What do you think?

May God bless us all.

Kathi